A shrewd servant. A penniless young woodcutter. A priceless stolen treasure. Melisende joins a crusade, her head full of glory and victory, only to flee from her first battle. Forced to hide as a housemaid while the enemy army occupies the city she'd hoped to save, she despairs of ever finding her way home. Mithra plans to settle down with the girl of his dreams, but when the war spills into his city, all dreams of the future are shattered. When he finds a Crusader maiden in the woods and they stumble across a priceless treasure, he thinks his luck might have turned…until he discovers the penalty of stealing from the Forty Thieves. Can Melisende and Mithra save his family from the Forty Thieves? Fans of the following authors will enjoy reading these steamy medieval fairytale romances: Lindsay Buroker Neil Gaiman Skye MacKinnon Kiera Cass Amanda Hocking Sarah J Maas Lidiya Foxglove Anne McCaffrey Tamsin Ley Holly Black Juliet Marillier Kylie Chan Leigh Bardugo Laura Thalassa Elise Kova Cassandra Clare George RR Martin Kathryn Le Veque Andrzej Sapkowski

Winner of The 2020 Best Book Award for Military History -- American Bookfest An elite platoon of Marine Scout-Snipers, Lieutenant Frank Tachovsky’s “40 Thieves” were chosen for their willingness to defy rules and beat all-comers. When two Marines got into a fight, the loser ended up in the infirmary, the winner in the brig. Tachovsky wanted the winner on his team—a brush with military law was a recommendation. These full-blooded men were trained in a ruthless array of hand-to-hand killing techniques and then thrown into the battle for Saipan—Emperor Hirohito’s “Treasure” and the bulwark of the Japanese Empire in the Pacific—where they would wreak havoc in and around, but mostly behind, enemy lines. They witnessed inhuman atrocities; walked into an ambush after the cunning Japanese used wounded Marines as bait; endured body-punishing extremes of heat, hunger, and thirst; fought a relentless enemy who would not surrender; and watched best friends die. Now Tachovsky’s son Joseph tells their remarkable story—a story he didn’t even know until after his father’s death—reported from an extensive documentary record, including priceless mementos his father kept, and from exhaustive interviews with survivors who served under Lieutenant “Ski.” This is how America won the war in the Pacific, where “uncommon valor was a common virtue.” 40 Thieves on Saipan: The Elite Marine Scout-Snipers in One of World War II’s Bloodiest Battles is true history. It’s also an adventure you don’t want to miss.